It was an honor to host Shimon Sandler of Sandler Digital for an interview on his history in the search marketing space, and how he grew two of his own agencies from the ground up. Shimon Sandler has worked at some of the most recognizable brands in our space, including with Kevin Lee of Didit and at Viacom/MTV, amongst other space. He also started an agency and sold it, and now has started another search marketing agency and is growing that one. I spoke with Shimon about his history in the search space, dating back to the early 2000s. But in our two part interview we also spoke about tips on how to build and grow your search marketing agency, and the ever so important – how to keep your current customers and keep them spending money. You can learn more about Shimon Sandler on LinkedIn. Here are the two videos: If you’re a search professional interested in appearing on Barry’s vlog, you can fill out this form on Search Engine Roundtable; he’s currently looking to do socially distant, outside interviews in the NY/NJ tri-state area. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel by clicking here. The post Video: Shimon Sandler on building and growing your search marketing agency appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3nkX4OG
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Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that it is doing away with the Q&A on Google search feature. This launched initially in India for searchers there in 2019 and now Google is telling those who submitted questions or answers that it will be going away. A Google spokesperson told us that this does not impact the Google Question Hub feature, but this does impact simply the ability of users to contribute answers in Google Search when people submitted questions. Google Question Hub is a portal for publishers to see questions submitted by searchers and provide answers for those questions by creating new webpages answering those questions. What is going away is the ability for users in Google search to contribute answers directly to those questions but Question Hub is not going away. The notice. @ujeshkrishnan shared a screenshot of the notice he received from Google about this going away, here is that screenshot: Impacting India. Google told us that this feature was only available in India for a select set of topics. Again, this is not impacting the overall Question Hub feature according to Google. Google said that users who submitted answers were notified so they can download their contributions via Google Takeout. What it looked like. Here is a screenshot I posted in 2019 of the Q&A on Google feature, but the user interface has changed over the years. Why we care. This was a popular feature for India based Google Search users. I believe this grew into what we now call the Question Hub, which is a great source of content ideas for publishers. That being said, Google is constantly testing new features, and adapting those features based on how searchers use them. Since the Google Question Hub is not going away, I suspect some of the Q&A on Google might be replaced with the Question Hub functionality. The post Google officially dropped Q&A on Google in search results appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3tR8NHk When many digital marketing professionals think of link building, their minds jump to the standard outreach process. One thinks of guides explaining how to craft the most optimal email subject lines when requesting inclusion in a publication, or perhaps they consider the best utilization of HARO. These methodologies can be quite effective, yet the return on investment is largely out of your control. Not everyone is going to respond favorably to emails and pitches, leaving marketers scrambling for new sources. Fortunately, there are some highly effective link-building tactics that give marketers more control and serve both users and website owners. These strategies rely specifically on broken backlinks. What are broken backlinks?Much like broken internal links on sites that bring up 4xx client codes, broken backlinks occur when an external link from a site points to a non-existent page on another domain. This most commonly occurs when a page URL has changed or the linking site added an incorrect URL. In fact, internet professionals have known about the tendency for links/pages to become non-existent for a long time. This phenomenon is often termed “link rot,” and many sites suffer from it. A study conducted by WooRank found that 12.2% of e-commerce site backlinks pointed users to a 404 page. Though the study only focused on e-commerce sites, there’s a high chance that similar trends would be found in other industries. In fact, we see this played out in the scholarly realm. A study conducted by Harvard Law Review in 2014 found that up to 20% of backlinks may be dead after just one year, and the percentage increases as time goes on. If the rate of link rot shocks you, you’re not alone. The exponential rate at which backlinks break leaves a tremendous amount of link equity going to waste. Given the prevalence of such links, it may be surprising to see how infrequently these tactics are discussed among seasoned marketers. This may be due to a disproportionate focus on the largely misunderstood “freshness” factor, opting to focus solely on earning links from new content without reviewing the missed opportunities from “older” backlinks. However, old backlinks can still be valuable. Marketers can find a treasure trove of value through link reclamation and outreach efforts. All it requires is close attention to the broken links pointing both to your site and your competitors’ sites. Broken Links: Reclamation vs. BuildingThere are two important differences between broken link reclamation and broken link building. Link reclamation seeks to literally reclaim the value of broken links pointing to your site. Broken link building, on the other hand, is the process by which you recreate content to replace your competitors’ broken backlinks. The methods are slightly different, but both grant you more control than standard link-building outreach tasks. They also make a world of difference if properly implemented. One particularly successful broken backlink project involved my client Ultimate Whale Watch & Snorkel. After initiating reclamation and outreach efforts, the levels of organic traffic and ranked keywords (the images below) increased over the next year at much higher rates than in recent years. An important thing to note here is the client’s industry. Despite being in the tourism/travel sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, UWW saw a 171.2% increase in organic traffic and a 257.2% increase in organic keywords ranked year over year. Coupled with the other link-building tools in your belt, broken link reclamation and building efforts can prove incredibly fruitful. Here are our recommended steps for both processes: Broken backlink reclamationStep 1: Analyze your site’s backlinks. First, you’ll need to determine how many (if any) backlinks pointing to your site are broken. Ahrefs is a great tool that analyzes this data, it allows you to review which backlinks are pointing to dead links. Open and log in to Ahrefs, then perform an analysis on your domain. Step 2: Organize your broken backlinks. Navigate to the “Broken Links” icon under “Backlinks” in the left-hand menu and click it. You’ll then see a list of all the broken backlinks for the site. It’s helpful to organize the broken backlinks in this list via the “DR” (domain rating) column. This will place the highest-valued links at the top of the list. You can then export these into a spreadsheet for further review. Step 3: Choose the broken links to go after. This handy table of data will show where the backlink originates from, its anchor text and what URL it is pointing to. Analyze the external domains listed and decide if the backlink is worth pursuing. You may decide some of them are irrelevant, low authority or just pure spam. It’s best to look for backlinks originating from authoritative sites that employ relevant anchor text. Step 4: Regain the broken link value. Once you’ve put together a list of broken backlinks you’d like to reclaim, review your own site and determine what link would be the most ideal replacement. There are two main ways to proceed from here.
Are 301 redirects effective with broken backlinks? Marketers have long debated the exact amount of link equity (or PageRank) that is passed along via 301 redirects. This is largely due to confusion over the way Google and other large search engines treat them. To clarify this issue, Google’s John Mueller explained how their search engine specifically uses 301 redirects as directives toward canonical URLs. So if the redirect link you set in place isn’t similar enough in topic to the original, Google will likely treat the broken link as a soft 404. But a highly relevant redirect will likely receive close to 100% of the ranking benefits. This is why it’s so important to make sure the redirect is appropriate to the missing content. You want search engines to treat your redirected URL as canon. Broken link building using competitor dataStep 1: Analyze your competitor’s backlinks. Choose a competitor and analyze them in Ahrefs in the same manner as described above. Step 2: Find the relevant broken backlinks. Categorize the broken backlinks by relevance. Review your own site and determine if you have content similar to the topic of the link in question. This will be the broken link you’ll be seeking to replace on the third-party site. Step 3: Provide the perfect replacement content. Now it’s time to get a piece of relevant replacement content together. If you’re starting from scratch, review the topic of the linking site — and the anchor text — and use it as a springboard for your new page. If the content already exists, then you’re ready to reach out! Step 4: Reach out to the site owner. Once you have a replacement page ready, reach out to the site owner with the broken link and let them know about the issue. Offer your article as a replacement while doing your best to show how it fits with the content’s topic. You’ll be surprised at how many site owners take you up on this — no one wants to feature articles with errors. Pay attention to broken backlinksThe broken backlink issues that affect virtually all sites at some point or another offer marketers creative link-building opportunities. Paying attention to these potential links could make a huge difference in your campaigns. The post How to gain value from broken backlinks appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3v9p4HG Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, and let’s get some things straight about some recent confusion around Google Search. We know Google has postponed the page experience update, but there has been a lot of misinformation out there around this update. Let me clarify the details:
There are a lot more tidbits and details around this page experience update, and we have a lot of content on this at our upcoming SMX Advanced show in June. Barry Schwartz, Google showing local car inventory in searchGoogle seems to be testing a new feature to show local car and automobile inventory in its search results. The search engine has a new landing page at /local/cars that lists local car inventory near you. This seems to be pulling from dealership inventory websites and showcases the available cars, let’s you filter and narrow down your car search, and dive into specific cars that are for sale. Google has not confirmed this feature, but it is accessible for all to see right now in the United States. Google launches target ROAS bidding for app campaigns“Starting today, if you have an Android app using Firebase SDK conversion reporting, you can use Target Return on Ad Spend (tROAS) bidding within App campaigns for installs,” wrote David Schachter, Product Manager for App Ads. To get started with Target ROAS bidding for App campaigns:
“When you set your target ROAS, you’re telling Google Ads the average value you want back for every dollar spent. Keep in mind that your budget will be used to get as much in-app value as possible at your set target ROAS,” Schachter said in the announcement. Google products reviews update is done rolling outThe Google products reviews update started rolling out just over two weeks ago, and it is now done rolling out as of Thursday, April 22nd. The update had the biggest impact the first few days after it launched, between April 8th and April 10th. But then there were numerous reports of additional algorithmic tremors after that three-day window. We know this update was a big one for sites that were hit by it, and now is the time to see how big this really was for your product review sites. Recent data from SEOs who are following this update closely show fluctuations and tremors for product review content sites as recently as Thursday morning. And Danny Sullivan from Google said recently that the update was still rolling out, but is done rolling out as of the time you get this email. Google soft 404 ranking bug fixed?A couple of weeks ago, there were reports of some sites having a nice number of their pages being labeled by Google as soft 404s. That means, Google was thinking a lot of real web pages on those sites were being labeled as not being pages Google should have in its index. Google did not exactly confirm the issue. We asked, and Google would not comment. But it seems like after a couple of weeks, Google did fix the issue on their end. These sites did not just notice a reporting issue in Google Search Console, but they actually noticed significant deindexing in Google Search and as a result. This led to less traffic from Google Search. Again, Google would not comment but it now seems to be fixed. Google’s John Mueller did say on Twitter “when things affect so few pages/sites like here, we tend not to go into too much detail.” Ad groups, site design and abbreviations.Ad group level ROAS targets. With the rollout of the upcoming Google Ads target CPA and target ROAS bundle changes, Ginny Marvin from Google confirmed on Twitter that “ad group level ROAS targets for Maximize conversion value will be supported when a target ROAS is set.” Change design may impact content changes. Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter, “If you change design, you generally change the content: headings, titles, images, internal linking, URL structure, accessibility, speed, etc – they’re all critical parts of a site and I’d consider them as content too.” Keep that in mind for your next website redesign. We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.
The post Let’s get things straight with the Google page experience update; Friday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3tMJ0QC It’s been nothing short of a battle for search marketers trying to navigate Google’s frequent changes when it comes to link building. Link building remains an important SEO factor, but the process for obtaining links has changed dramatically. Join Page One Power and its team of expert link builders on Tuesday, May 4th, to discuss how to earn truly organic links for your organization After the presentation, they will answer questions and do a link-building workshop to show real-life examples of these steps in action. Register for “SEO Wars: How to Resist the Dark Side and Earn Links Organically,” presented by Page One Power. The post SEO wars: How to resist the ‘dark side’ and earn links organically appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3tLoWxM Google has now completed rolling out the product reviews update that first began rolling out two weeks ago today, Danny Sullivan of Google told Search Engine Land. “Caveat is with any update, you can still sometimes have some edge case lingering,” Sullivan explained. “But effectively done,” he said when it comes to the rollout of this new Google search ranking algorithm. The confirmation. Here is the tweet from Danny Sullivan when I asked him if it was done rolling out. Some more details. To catch you up, the Google products review update first launched on April 8, 2021. This is a new update, specifically looking at product review types of content, and it finished rolling out today, April 22, 2021. The Google product reviews update aims to promote review content that is above and beyond much of the templated information you see on the web. Google said it will promote these types of product reviews in its search results rankings. Google is not directly punishing lower quality product reviews that have “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.” However, if you provide such content and find your rankings demoted because other content is promoted above yours, it will definitely feel like a penalty. Technically, according to Google, this is not a penalty against your content, Google is just rewarding sites with more insightful review content with rankings above yours. This update should only impact product review content and not other types of content. The data providers said this was a big update, but not as big as a core update. Why we care. Now is the time to check your sites to see if you were impacted by this update. If you do not write product review content, you likely did not feel anything from this update, but if you do write product reviews, you may have very well been impacted. Google provided advice on what to do to help your product review content rank well with this update – you can read that advice in our original story. The post Google product reviews update is done rolling out appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2PbAvzm Registration is open for Search Engine Land’s SMX Advanced — happening for the first time in a 100% virtual environment. Join us online — June 15-16 — for the premier training opportunity for elite search marketers. Register by May 8 to lock in Super Early Bird rates — just $199 for an All Access pass! Book now and get ready to…
If you’ve always wanted to attend SMX Advanced before, this is your chance: Register now to get this unique training experience streamed directly to your computer for a fraction of the cost of in-person events — just $199 for an All Access pass or $299 for an All Access + Workshop bundle! Super Early Bird rates expire May 8… what are you waiting for? Register now! The post SMX Advanced is happening online for the first time… register now! appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3v95I5C Turn the beat around: Over half a million new businesses opened in Q1 2021; Thursdays daily brief4/22/2021 Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, and let’s chat give and take, I joined my friend Mordy Oberstein on a Clubhouse chat yesterday where we dissected the tug-of-war between search marketers and Google. There was a lot of good conversation about intentions, mistakes, and feelings (search marketing therapy maybe?). But here were some of the most interesting takeaways for me:
What do you think of the back-and-forth between Google and search marketers? Could one exist without the other? Let me know your thoughts [email protected]. Carolyn Lyden, Microsoft Advertising Partner Summit announces video ads, in-browser price comparisons and Facebook importMicrosoft’s Advertising Partner Summit begins today and includes the announcement of multiple new product updates and insights. Here are some of the key announcements:
Why we care. These new product announcements and continued research in product improvement give advertisers and small businesses more options to take advantage of the search market on Microsoft Bing. More than half a million new businesses opened in the last yearYelp released its Q1 2021 Yelp Economic Average (YEA) report, which reveals strong signals of local economic recovery through new business openings, business reopenings and consumer interest changes. Key findings from the report indicate that business reopenings are hitting their highest levels since Q2 2020 and more new businesses have opened in Q1 2021 than any other period over the last 12 months. What local businesses are seeing the biggest increases?
Why we care. If you’re an SEO or PPCer working in local or for SMBs, you may have seen an increase in demands for your services too as these industries have started to recover after the pandemic. What do SEOs think of the latest Google lawsuit?ICYMI. The Daily Mail, a British news tabloid, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google saying that “Google punishes publishers in [organic] search rankings if they don’t sell enough advertising space through Google’s marketplace,” wrote Patience Haggin for The Wall Street Journal. This came after our own Barry Schwartz wrote about how the Daily Mail’s SEO posted in a search forum in 2019 asking for advice when they lost over half their traffic to an algorithm update. Google’s response. “The Daily Mail’s claims are completely inaccurate. The use of our ad tech tools has no bearing on how a publisher’s website ranks in Google Search. More generally, we compete in a crowded and competitive ad tech space where publishers have and exercise multiple options. The Daily Mail itself authorizes dozens of ad tech companies to sell and manage their ad space, including Amazon, Verizon and more. We will defend ourselves against these meritless claims,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land. SEOs react. “Let me get this straight, the Daily Mail is claiming that Google suppresses their organic results because the algorithms prioritize publishers with larger ad budgets? So basically they did 0 research about how search works before filing the lawsuit,” tweeted Lily Ray from Path Interactive. “The Daily Mail is failing to meet users’ needs. They fail at #MobileFirst (Due in Feb), Nonintrusive Interstitials, [and] the site takes 45 seconds to load,” agreed Lea Scudamore from AimClear. “This is absolutely hilarious. Any SEO would tell you why Daily Mail doesn’t rank well. It’s because it’s a terrible website with thin content and an awful user experience,” said Kate Neuens with Beyond Identity. What do attendees want from your presentation?Malcolm Knowles was an influencer in American adult education and developed four principles he felt should be taken into consideration when teaching adults. As noted in this article that summarizes Knowles’ theories and principles, the principles indicate that…
You may be wondering what this has to do with a presentation that you’re developing for an event next month. Although presenting at an industry event isn’t the same as developing formal training, the audience you’re speaking to is adults, and they are there to learn so why not take some of these principles of adult learning into consideration? The second two principles easily translate to what your presentation should do — help your audience solve a problem that they are currently facing. The first two principles are a little tougher to accomplish in an event setting. However, you could survey attendees before you present in order to find out what information is really important to them. That would get them involved with the direction of the presentation. In terms of your audience bringing their life experiences to learning, if you are planning a Q&A period, it’s great to get the attendees to answer each other’s questions. People often want to share experiences and offer advice. Plus, attendees often say they want to hear from their peers facing similar challenges. I hope this gives you a little insight into the adult learner and helps you plan a more memorable presentation. As always, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. Search for women-led businesses, IDFA launch next week and, well, a cool TikTokGoogle prompts searchers to look for women-led businesses. “If you’re a woman running a business, it’s a good idea to get this attribute added to your GMB listing!” tweeted Joy Hawkins. IDFA officially launches next week. Apple confirmed that the IDFA prompt that will ask users to opt-in to cross-app data collection will launch next week. “IOS 14.5 has a lot of new features, but the one that’s being most closely watched is called ATT, or App Tracking Transparency,” said Kif Leswing. Our fave PPC TikTok-er gives IDFA the Toto treatment. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Mark Zuckerberg’s perspective on Apple’s IDFA set to the tune of Toto’s Africa, have we got a video for you… The almost-complete guide to Cumulative Layout ShiftJess Peck’s almost-complete guide to CLS is both hilarious and ridiculously helpful. Yes, she drew us in with the “Confession Time: I don’t care about the Core Web Vitals (CWV) update” intro, but we stayed for the meat — and it’s really meaty. First, it starts with the definition of CLS for any person to understand (because we’ve all experienced it): “CLS is when you’re about to click on a link, and the whole page shifts and you click on a different link instead. It’s when you’re halfway through a blogpost and an ad loads and you lose your place. It is when… the layout shifts. At least, that’s what it’s trying to measure — both those shifts, how often they happen, and the irritation that causes the user.” Then Peck deep dives into how to measure and fix CLS issues ahead of Google’s Core Web Vitals page experience update (which has been moved to a June launch). But most interesting is the data behind it:
It’s worth the read, plus you’ll chuckle along at the gifs and examples: “Here’s some stuff to send your stakeholders. 1. Users don’t like bad CLS, and 2. Even if they did, Google doesn’t.” The post Turn the beat around: Over half a million new businesses opened in Q1 2021; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2Pd0GWx Google appears to be testing local car and auto dealership inventory in the Google Search results. Google has not commented on this news yet but you may be able to access local automobile inventory in the US by visiting google.com/local/cars. What it looks like. When you visit google.com/local/cars Google shows you a list of automobile inventory for local dealerships in your area. Here is a screenshot showing cars for sale in my area: You can then filter the results to show new or used cars, the car brand, type and so on. The filters are not working 100% correctly, but that is okay since it seems to be something that Google is testing and have not yet announced. Here is a screen shot of a specific car for sale, where you can see all the details and specs on this individual VIN. You can click on the image to enlarge: More. This was first noticed by Jim Kreinbrink , who posted on Twitter that Google added these URLs to its robots.txt the other night. Why we care. Is Google going to be getting into the car dealership space, where Google will start selling cars directly to consumers? I doubt it. But this may be an early pilot with some dealerships to showcase their local inventory in the Google search results. I expect we will hear official news from Google on how to get your local dealership to participate or if Google is just crawling inventory feeds from these local dealership websites. The formats of these feeds are normally the same across most dealerships anyway. The post Google local car dealership inventory search results appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2QmHqq5 One of the most creative and innovative social media accounts for a business is Wendy’s. Across their social media platforms, but particularly their Twitter account, the fast-food restaurant has been known for its biting tweets against competitors and followers purposefully asking to be roasted for a laugh. No burger joint is safe from their wrath and you know you’ll laugh scrolling through their feed. Of course, Wendy’s can get serious too, dealing with customer complaints professionally and encouraging a direct message to help make it right. No matter what you think about their square burger patties or Frostys, Wendy’s social media presence — Twitter in particular — is a case study in successfully controlling the conversation and creating a rapport with an audience. Wendy’s bold brand identity won’t be the best fit for all businesses. It can be a hard sell for a business owner to decide on taking risks, doing something uncomfortable, or venturing away from what they’ve been doing for decades. In other words, to pull a Wendy’s. And their reservations make sense — social media can be challenging. It’s a moving target with constantly changing algorithms and features. It’s no wonder that managing social feeds is a full-time job. In fact, getting businesses who are focused on traditional marketing to pivot into the digital space is no easy feat. Many business owners don’t realize the impact that a strong online presence can have on their bottom line. In today’s marketplace, prospective customers look at social media to get a feel for the owners and business they’re planning to work with. Consumers like to see how active a business is on the platforms and to get a sense of how they respond to conflict. Some may even assume a business has shuttered if it hasn’t posted on its social feeds in a while. For smaller businesses, it can also feel impossible to have the social media presence of a giant corporation with who knows how many people behind the scenes. But it’s more than just manpower, it’s also embracing social media and its opportunities. Four days after the presidential election, a small landscaping business went viral when Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference in front of their garage to discuss the election. It was at Four Seasons Landscaping just outside of Philadelphia, a woman-owned business that’s been around since 1992. It doesn’t matter whether you believe Trump’s campaign meant to choose this storefront or if they intended it to be at the Four Seasons Hotel. Whatever the case, Four Seasons Total Landscaping took advantage of their newfound celebrity status and ran with it. Since the press conference, people have driven out to take photos in front of the shop, they received so many new Yelp reviews that it triggered a fraud alert, a petition was created to add the building to the National Register of Historic Places, and they were the number one trending topic on Twitter. Four Seasons Landscaping printed up t-shirts that read “Lawn and Order” and “Make America Green Again,” updated their social media account, and interacted with new followers — including joking that they hired Alexis Rose from “Schitt’s Creek” to handle their online presence. While not every small business will be asked to host a press conference during a presidential election, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping story shows that even the smallest of businesses can interact in fun ways with their audience. And who knows how many advertising campaigns and ideas they had come up with before this golden opportunity came along. But the fact of the matter is, if you don’t try something new, you won’t get new results. The post How businesses of all sizes can embrace social media appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3xgcM2h |
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